vintage gilded mirrors and a captivating
portrait rest atop a mantel in the upper room of
The Source, a shop owned by Barbara Lentz,
whose expertise includes 20th-century American
paintings and mid-20th-century furniture. A
lighted mirror (facing page, bottom) that
reportedly belonged to Katharine Hepburn, who
was known for putting on her makeup outdoors,
and a mid-century vibrant orange Cappellini
chair (facing page, top) are also at The Source.

Although her shop is situated in the
heart of an old New England village, Norman knows her younger clientele leans
toward mid-century Modern objects these
days, so her back room includes a 1950s
vignette complete with a 6-foot-long
teak-frame sofa outfitted with cushions in
period-style fabric. To show customers the
joy of mixing periods, Norman rests a Victorian birdcage atop an early 1900s table
and places a tall 19th-century walnut card
table in the center of the room, noting that
it would make a great kitchen island.

“I tell people they just need to trusttheir instincts and release their worriesabout everything being perfect,” says Nor-man. “That’s what you see in great houses,a lot of trust and release.”Another shopkeeper known for herexquisite eye and good advice is BarbaraLentz, owner of The Source ( 123 WaterStreet), just a few storefronts down thestreet from Norman. Although this shopjust opened last December, Lentz has beencoming to Stonington since the 1970s andsays she has had 38 places over the years,including art galleries in New York andshops in Charleston, South Carolina, andFlorida. “Even when I had painting gal-leries in New York City, I loved to come toStonington,” she says. “There are so many